We Return to Love

Tonight, we begin Shabbat Shuva, the shabbat of returning, after a very complex year. During the last week of this year, we saw a massive attack towards Israel. The whole country spent hours in their bunkers. On the next day, I talked to my sister-in-law, who lives in Israel. She told me about the fear, about being with her kids in the shelter, about how her son’s gan teacher sent a message in their WhatsApp group asking for pictures of what they were doing inside their safe rooms, and how on the next day, just before I talked to her, she was out in Tel Aviv playing beach-volley. Life goes on, resilience is in their blood. But far from Israel, we perceive the pain of past events, we see increasing hatred around us, and we feel lost.

Sometimes we wish to go back to better times, as expressed in the book of Lamentations, that we repeat during every Torah service:

הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ יְהֹוָ֤ה אֵלֶיךָ וְֽנָשׁוּבָ חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶֽדֶם

Take us back, God, to Yourself,

And let us come back;

Renew our days as of old![i]

I never understood or agreed with this idea of returning to days of old. Nostalgia is something that never had a huge place in my mind. Not that I don’t miss the cuteness of my kids as babies, but I like the place that I am now, regardless the difficulties. However, this return, especially the one we talk about during this time of the year is not a proper return, a travel in time, but a metaphorical one, with a learning purpose. Returning as in Teshuvah can mean repentance, response. It is the ability to move, to change course, to come back to centre, to reconcile.[ii] We review our mistakes, make amends, ask for forgiveness.

Teshuvah can also be returning to God, to the feeling of sacredness in the world, as expresses the prophet Hosea, in the first verses of this Saturday’s haftarah: “Return, O Israel, to the ETERNAL your God, for you have fallen because of your sin.[iii]

That is the path indicated by the ancient Ashkenazi pyiut Unetane Tokef, which epitomizes the High Holiday prayer services for many contemporary Jews:

תְשׁוּבָה וּתְפִלָּה וּצְדָקָה מַעֲבִירִין אֶת רֹעַ הַגְּזֵרָה

Teshuvah, Tefillah and Tzedakah avert the severity of the decree.

After reconciliation, returning to God, to our relationship with the Divine Presence in this world, leads us to Tefillah – prayer - the ability to let the world take your breath away, to hold onto and to articulate gratitude, hope, and awe. It allows us to see what surrounds us through different lenses, to feel differently, as beautifully written by Rabbi Emma Gottlieb:

Returning to you

doesn’t have to be complicated.

The shofar only blasts so often

But the Still Small Voice is within me

always

if I can only remember

to be still myself

so that I can hear it.

Returning to you doesn’t have to be complicated

It can be a moment

a pause

noticing the sunbeam of light falling

softly

across my bed in the morning

A miracle if I notice it

A tragedy if I do not.

Returning to you

can be as simple as turning out the noise

and listening to my own heartbeat

my own breath

hearing the bird coo outside my window

feeling the wind on my skin

Awe lives exactly in this moment when prayer goes from self to the universe, from one’s breath to the wind. And then we reach Tzedakah – righteousness - the ability to pursue justice and to act from a fountain of generosity. We reach love, for in Judaism love “is not an emotion or an action; it’s an emotion and an action. It’s an existential posture, a life orientation, a way of holding ourselves in the world; it’s a way of life. Love is not (only) an emotion, since love, to be coherently considered love, persists over time in a way that many ordinary emotions do not.” Explains Rabbi Shai Held in his new book ‘Judaism is about Love’.

Jewish love is not romantic love as seen in the movies, but it is the expression of gratitude and protection for all God’s creation. It is the study of Torah, not for the sake of study, but for the sake of understanding the moral values that should guide our lives. It is doing things because they have meaning, because they are connected with our moral values as indicated by the prophet Isiah in his questioning: Is this what God wants from us? No. “Learn to do good. Dedicate yourselves to righteousness.”[iv]. The answer to suffering is not despair or hatred, but protecting the vulnerable, loving God’s creation, choosing life, our own and that of others.

As we read in parashat Nitzavim, during the last week of the Jewish year: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life.”[v]. Choosing life is a necessary exercise in the most difficult moments of our lives. It is the effort to return or continue to see the colours and beauty of the world, even when our soul feels grey, as so many Israelis do. Choosing life is refusing to accept pain and suffering as our Jewish identity.

Yes, we share so many collective pains: Mitzraim, Galut, Cruzades, Shoah, October 7th. However, we are taught to focus on life, to celebrate the fact that we are alive, that as a people we were not destroyed. Suffering should not define us, we are not our scars. We must see and illuminate colours, even when the whole world seems to be grey.

We will also read tomorrow in our haftarah:

“I will heal their affliction,

Generously will I take them back in love.”[vi]

Life will always bring moments of pain and suffering, some bigger than others. But we can make of ourselves strong characters who can endure, who can survive the pain, who can see colour during grey times of our existence. In Rosh Hashanah it is written, and in Yom Kippur it is sealed. But if we turn back to our inner selves (teshuvah) and to God and Her creations (tefillah) and act according to our Jewish moral values (tzedakah), we can make the story of our lives worth reading. It is in our power to choose life, and to receive love.

Shabbat Shalom

[i] Lamentations 5:21

[ii] https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/unetanah-tokef 

[iii] Hosea 14:2

[iv] Isaiah 1:17

[v] Deuteronomy 30:19

[vi] Hosea 14:5